Following up on her “Cloud Filmmaking Manifesto,” filmmaker Tiffany Shlain introduces the second film in her “Let it Ripple” series—a uniquely collaborative process, from creation through dissemination.

Following up on her “Cloud Filmmaking Manifesto,” filmmaker Tiffany Shlain introduces the second film in her “Let it Ripple” series—a uniquely collaborative process, from creation through dissemination.

This piece was written by Henneke Duistermaat, guest blogger for Copyblogger. I selected it because trust and loyalty are the two ingredients you need to build and keep your following. It isn't that difficult to attain if you follow these suggestions.

Determine what you want to be known for, then start building your reputation from there.

Here are a few highlights:

Three key elements to developing trust with your online audience:

** Build authority by creating and sharing useful content

**Develop relationships with your audience by showing you genuinely care

**Underscore your credibility with a professional website

Here's what caught my attention:

"Knowledge and competence is great but the combination of both encourages people to trust you and increases your powers of enchantment" Guy Kawasaki

Global consumers have clear and specific expectations for the role companies should play in addressing social and environmental issues with 93 percent wanting to see more of the products and services they use support corporate social responsibility...

Oren Jacob says tablet computers like the iPad are changing the nature of storytelling and enabling a new era of interactive entertainment. Jacob spent more than two decades at Pixar, where he rose to the rank of Chief Technical Officer. He recently started his own family entertainment company ToyTalk, which is developing a mobile application that will use artificial intelligence to allow children to have interactive video conversations with fictional characters. Jacob also co-teaches the "Lean Launchpad" class at Stanford University with serial entrepreneur Steve Blank.

Love this story! It's about a city using the power of storytelling to chart their future. Hooray!

Don't you wish more organizations -- whether businesses, nonprofits, or governments -- would do the same? I know everyone's experience would be much richer with better outcomes, too.

My only little criticism of the process the City of East Palo Alto is using are the questions they are asking. They are OK. But if they reaslly wanted stories they would be using story prompts to make sure they really heard stories. The questions they are now using will get them information or opinions and maybe not stories.

Instead of asking, "How do you make use of the city's parks?" they could ask, "Tell me about some of the best times you've had in the city's parks..." The first question gets you information like, "We go picnicing, we use the playground, I like running in the park..."

If you ask the second question you actually get a very rich story that tells you more. "I really like to run in the park every morning. The scenery is beautiful and I like how the city replants its flowers each season so the park is constantly changing and pleasant to be in. I run with my buddies. It is easy to find parking and we can hang out at the picnic tables afterward."

You get the idea. We now have meaningful experiences to help guide decision-making about plant maintenance, parking facilities, places to congregate, etc. that we never would have gotten by asking the first information-based question.

So if you plan to do something similar in your organization, focus on the "Art of the Question" and investigate story prompts and the Appreciative Inquiry process for more help.

"While not all agree, let's suppose, for a moment, that we are, in fact, presenting through our contemporary storytelling a relatively narrow range of the American experience. Some of the questions we ought to be asking are, is it enough to maintain the same formats, as we have, and try to entice more/different storytellers? Do we need to expand our awareness in some way to consider more broadly the particulars of this time, this particular space, and who is involved? And, fundamentally, what is it going to take to go further, to do more?"

Now here is a very thought-provoking piece about storytelling in general. I've curated it because the more businesses understand the craft of storytelling, the more effective we can be.

Warning -- there is such rich material here -- along with fabulous video examples to watch -- that you will need to carve out some time to explore everything here.

And hey -- we all live in a culture surrounded by media. It is important to keep up with shifts and changes in technology and its impact on storytelling so we can understand our daily life better -- and the opportunities open to us.

What is the biggest shift technolgy brings? Ethnographic storytelling. What the heck is that? It is when you put the camera and the storytelling into the hands of people to create and tell their story. Nothing new here -- this was pioneered by Anthropologists Sol Worth & John Adair in the 1972 book Through Navajo Eyes. The article contains several examples.

What is new is that now technology makes the ability to share our stories very easy and cheap to do -- through a proliferation of channels to share them. THAT is what is getting reinvented -- not the structure of a good story.

And technology is bringing us unique and very creative ways to craft our stories. For example, there's a link within this article to "How the Indie Audio Community Is Transforming Storytelling," This article shares a story where audio is dominant. It is great.

Other examples in the article include Localore -- a project about place-based storytelling.

What do I like about this article and the links to other articles within this piece? It asks essential questions like:

Who gets to tell the story? Who gets to ask the question that begins the story? What is the question?

When businesses and organizations start asking themselves these questions FIRST when wanting to tell a digital story, they focus on the story first. Too many people in my experience -- when wanting to tell a digital story -- get caught up in the technology first and end up spending tons of money with unhappy results. Or they think the story will emerge if they just start talking - to be edited down by the videographer into a story -- with the same unhappy results.

So read this article, its links to other articles, explore the digital story examples given, and start figuring out the following:

How can I have my customers share their stories about my organization using ethnographic storytelling? How can I leverage audio storytelling (see the article for info/examples) beyond radio & podcasts? How can I leverage location & physical space to share biz stories? How can I creatively use technology to share biz stories that reflect my/our Unique Voice & Unique Proposition?

I could comment at length on this article and its links. It has taken me awhile to curate this piece because I kept going back and dipping in for more.

So give yourself time to enjoy this creative romp exploring cutting edge electronic storytelling and all the deep insights here!

This piece was brought to my attention by my wonderful friend and colleague, Jennifer Sertl. It was written in April of 2011 by Jay Deragon who is always articulates the present and the future in a way that hopefully expands your awareness which we all need in today's marketplace.

Here are some of the highlights:

**People are gathering in "tribes" to connect, collaborate, discover and influence change.

**Social technology provides people the ability to aggregate around everything and anywhere.

**The market sees this and attempts to aggregate self serving tribes but the people have a different purpose & their own tribe

**The aggregation of tribes has become the pursuit of the market. Pulling groups and custom networks has become a common practice of the markets managing these tribes with a purpose different than simply gatering of the trade.

The evolving dynamics of tribal aggregation are the dynamics that will change the way markets interact with tribes

1. Tribes control the message with growing influence over markets

2. Tribes have a purpose. Help them fulfill their purpose and just maybe you'll become part of that tribe

3. Companies will have to learn that they are not the "connection" to the tribes, internal and external hold the keys to tribal influence

4> Tribes do need management, they need tools to accomplish their objectives and will always be self managed

5. Tribal leaers are more interested in serving tribe members than themselves.

Here is a great takeaway:

Seth Godin writes: "Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at it.

**It starts with permission, the understanding that the real asset isn't an amorphous brand but is in fact the privilege of delivering anticipated relevant messages to people who want to get them

This piece was written by Bolivar J. Bueno for MarketingProfs. I selected it because I thought the suggestions were excellent.

Jan Gordon:

Whatever you're doing to build an audience, customer or client base, listening at deeper levels is crucial for your business success.

Engaging online with customers is not unlike real life. The difference is we have social media/networks and great tools to help us really get to know them and speak to their listening, then deliver solutions

Intro:

"Years of research have revealed that the single most important factor that separates the good companies from the great companies Adidas from Nike is the ability to listen to their customers. That's the starting poing".

Excerpt:

"Dominant organizations, are those that can discern meaning from the information given. In other words, they're doing more than listening. They're hearing. And they're deriving their direction from what they hear".

How, exactly, does such effective listening work?

Here is what caught my attention:

Understand the unconscious

**A vast majority of human experience, communication and thought take place on an unconscious level - this is the first step to listening to the customer.

**We're continually taking note of the enviornment around us - how people interact within that enviornment and what role we play as individuals

**That information has a profound role in guiding customer behavior

**Truly effective communication means being able to listen on

multiple levels to what is said and what is left unsaid

Access Archetypal Images: A single image is worth a thousand words for a simple reason:

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.